Back in the UK

I feel like the world's worst blogger, I'm back in the UK and I feel like I hardly blogged while I was out in New Jersey. I guess I was having too much fun with Kyle! and now I'm here without her again I'm missing my Jersey Girl. (I'm also missing her fast internet connection, but I won't mention that in case I sound unromantic. Oops!)

We got a lot done while I was in the US though - as well as our vacation in Myrtle Beach, we did a lot of wedding planning. We looked at a number of different possible wedding venues trying to find somewhere that worked for us, and although at times it felt like a real struggle in the end I think we came up trumps. So our ceremony venue will be the Huisman gazebo in Belmar, which is right next to the beach, and the reception will be at the Waterview Pavilion about a mile away. The town is close to Kyle's parents and looks like a great place for my UK visitors (with a rail link to New York for those who prefer the big city).

We also did a lot of work on various ideas for invitations and other graphics, and came up with some cool stuff. In the process I've also learned a lot more about the image manipulation program Gimp, and a little about other software such as Scribus, which has been fun, and I also learned that Kyle is a real whizz at making rocking miniature laptops. (Kyle has been collecting all our wedding idea stuff together in a set on Flickr, if you want to take a look.)

We're tentatively setting the wedding date for mid-May, but we're going to wait until my visa application has come through before sending out invitations, and now I'm back in the UK I'm getting together the final documents to complete the application. The process seems long and involved but I know that the end result will be worth it - and I'm inspired by the fortune cookie message that I got at PF Changs last Friday:

Sounds like great advice to me!

An Englishman in New Jersey

Kyle and I are back in New Jersey after a week's vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (all sea, sand, miniature golf and good Southern food - a great time was had by all). Coming back was a little bittersweet, even more so since while we were away it seems like summer has turned to autumn back here. Perhaps that was to be expected since Monday was Labor Day, a national holiday here in the US which - like the Late Summer Bank Holiday last week in the UK - unofficially marks the end of the summer.

Our Labor Day was spent getting reorganised after our holiday, but we also made a trip to the Menlo Park mall to pick up my wedding ring from the jewellers (so now we have both rings), followed by a visit to the big Barnes & Noble store next door. Kyle was looking for books on stretching and back pain while I was looking at magazines (and manfully resisting the urge to buy more books on software).

There were two cashiers at the checkout: an American woman giving Kyle the hard sell about how much money she would have saved on her purchases if she'd had a B&N membership, and a rather dapper and well-spoken middle-aged Englishman who rang up my mags. It still surprises me to hear another English accent here, and while I was paying I wondered whether I should acknowledge the fact that we were both Englishmen in a foreign country.

But all I could think of saying was something along the lines of, "So, you're English too?", and that seemed pretty lame, or "You're not from round here, are you?", which seemed even more lame. So I just let it pass (as did he), and afterwards I felt a little bemused - I'm sure there isn't any proper protocol for this kind of situation, but somehow I felt like there should be.

Anyway: since then we've been getting back on track with our wedding planning and are homing in on venues for the ceremony and reception. It's been intense but hopefully we'll be able to pull things together in the next week or so - stay posted (and in the meantime check out my slender selection of pictures from Myrtle Beach, and Kyle's more substantial collection).

Caught in a New Jersey hurricane!

I've been doing a particularly poor job of posting to this blog since I arrived in New Jersey, and tomorrow Kyle and I are flying out to Myrtle Beach so the situation is unlikely to improve over the next week.

In my defence, it's been a busy couple of weeks. In fact, just like the very real hurricanes swirling out in the Atlantic this time of year, it feels like we've been caught in our own metaphorical New Jersey hurricane - in between visiting our lawyer, buying our rings and attending the very rocking bowling alley wedding of our friends Chris and Christine, we've also been designing our wedding stationary, and checking out possible venues. Kyle has been doing a great job keeping up with this whirlwind in her blog (start with her "Wedding logo draft posting" and work your way forward, if you want more details or check out our great designs!).

In the odd minutes left over from all that, I've been enjoying being back in New Jersey now that it's summer - it's warm enough to go out without a coat, and the air is filled with the loud high-frequency clicking sound of the cicadas. It's pretty neat. Meanwhile there's also a few changes on the Princeton campus, which seems to be undergoing maintenance before the fall semester: the "marching figures" have disappeared from the front of the Art Museum, Upstart 2 has lost its black paint job (now more in keeping with the artist's intentions), and until earlier this week my favourite fake Picasso sculpture had also been under wraps.

Also, random people seem to be more talkative now. They're often interested in where I'm from, and how the weather differs between the US and the UK (my take: generally the climate in NJ is quite similar to back home, although a bit more consistent than back home, and with greater extremes - the summer being much hotter, and the winter is much colder). They're also interested in knowing if I follow soccer, and seem disappointed when I say I don't (I might start trying to bluff my way through it in future).

Anyway, fun as it is all is, after running around for the last few of weeks it'll be fun to finally get away to South Carolina for a bit: sun, sea and sand, miniature golf and great food at the K&W. I'm sure Kyle will be blogging in real time while we're there, otherwise - see you when we get back. Aloha!

Me and KDB

Hopefully by now everyone that I know has found out personally from me or Kyle that we are officially engaged (there's a ring and everything!) and that we've started the K1 fiancee visa application that will ultimately allow us to get married in the US and live there as husband and wife. Yaay! (and apologies if I know you and this turns out to be the first that you knew. Sorry.)

Kyle has already written an excellent blog posting about our engagement and the gory details of the visa application process - so if you'd like to know the ins and outs then I'll direct you there rather than trying to rehash them now. Suffice to say that it looks like it will take a while - a long while (as in, 10 to 14 months long) - as well as involving the collection of a whole bunch of documents.

However this girl is worth it, and then some - she's like no-one else I know and I'm so happy that after 5 years of transatlantic to-ing and fro-ing, that she finally said yes to getting married and being together for the rest of our lives. Having her in my life makes it feel richer and more meaningful, and I think that as well as sharing a common outlook on life, wordplay and miming to muzak in the supermarket aisles on a Saturday night, we are also able to bring out the best in each other.

We both know that it won't always be smooth sailing, and right now the process seems very long, but I'm excited about our future beyond that, and I know that after all this time that we can make it work. I love you Kyle!

At least now the process is started - Kyle recieved the USCIS filing receipt for the petition today - and we have a little time still to plan our wedding on the Jersey Shore!